


Cupcakes

by frozenfoxfire (orphan_account)



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkward Conversations, Gen, M/M, lots of baked goods
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2017-12-22 04:25:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/908899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/frozenfoxfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>from a prompt <a href="http://deforrestkelley.tumblr.com/post/56256929086">deforrestkelley</a> @ tumblr wrote up:</p><p>Jim Kirk's a reclusive writer that hardly ever goes outside. One day, he starts getting mysterious boxes of cupcakes outside his door.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cupcakes

" _Yes_ , Spock, _I know_ my deadline's in three days, okay?"

Jim Kirk irritably rolls his eyes, swinging the door behind him closed, the pile of mail in his hands immediately dumped onto the kitchen table as he walks by it. He switches the phone from one ear to the other, pinning it to his head with his shoulder and dropping back into his swivel chair as his editor drones on and on about how illogical it is to wait until the very last minute and how impatient his fans are for a new sequel. 

"I _understand_ that, Spock, really, I do, but I can't just crap out forty thousand words and call it good," he replies loudly, half-reading the last sentence he'd typed. "They're expecting quality, and I want to give them quality. I'm not asking for an extension or anything, but I can guarantee you this won't be done until the deadline!"

"You are making my job more difficult than it needs to be," his editor snaps back, but he's only half-listening, typing again. _Cynthia's breath catches as the door rips itself from the hinges, revealing the large_... Large what? Where the hell was he going with this?

"I know, I'm the worst," Kirk interrupts him as he begins to slide into a tight-lipped, tighter-worded tirade about his leniency and expectations, "but, look, Spock, if you want this on time, you're going to have to stop calling me and interrupting my work? Okay? Okay," and he snaps the phone shut, dropping it onto the pile of paper that has always decorated the corner of his desk, a looming threat of the real world and his overflowing to-do list. He shifts in his chair, moving forward, licking his lips, fingers poised above the keys in preparation of work; he gets maybe three and a half sentences out before he realizes he'd brought in the mail.

This wouldn't be something to stop him, normally, but he didn't normally get packages, and he vaguely recalled picking up a small box. He leans around in his seat, glancing at the table. Beneath all the bills, ad papers and magazines, he spots it, tiny little thing that it is. The other mail shifts slightly, the box too small to hold it all, and it's swallowed up by grocery ads.

"Damnit," he mutters to himself, swinging back around and stomping back to the kitchen table, raggedy yellow bathrobe fluttering behind him. He swipes a knife from the kitchen and swipes the mail off the top of the box, prepared to cut it open with the practiced hand of an author who orders too many of his own books. He almost audibly gasps when it's revealed to be a little pastry box, pale yellow in color, with a circle and the letters PP in the center. 

Kirk cocks his head, dropping the knife and sliding it open with his fingers. Inside sit three somewhat large expertly decorated cupcakes, each with a swirl of frosting like a ice cream cone. One has a cherry on the top and swirls of red down the perfect white swirl; another has had chocolate drizzled down it, while the third is decorated simply with sprinkles. 

He frowns, inspecting the box further. The only card is tucked in the box proper, against one of the flimsy cardboard walls, sporting only the same logo as the lid of the box and a little smiley face, as if to say "promise they're not poisoned" in the creepiest way possible. For a long moment Kirk stares at the card, trying to decide whether or not to eat them. After about two straight minutes he tosses the card down and takes the box with him to his desk, plopping them down on the pile of papers, phone skittering off the desk and to the floor. 

_Cynthia's breath catches as the door rips itself from the hinges, revealing the large, menacing leader of the lizard-like race, standing tall in the doorway, his crest of feathers extended in a violent warning around his head and neck. He cocks his head, lizardesque skull angled in a fashion that terrifies her to the bone._

"Lizardesque skull?" Kirk frowns at the screen, leaning forward, as if his eyes are betraying him. "I didn't just write that, did I? I did. Wow, okay. What an idiot." He leans back again, tapping the backspace button repeatedly, annoyed. "Let's try take two."

_Cynthia's breath catches as the door rips itself from the hinges, revealing the large, menacing leader of the lizard-like race, standing tall in the doorway, his crest of feathers extended in a violent warning around his head and neck. He cocks his head, the angle so purely animalistic that, for a moment, Cynthia is sure she will die._

"That's better," he murmurs to himself, leaning back again and rereading the entire page. He'd originally meant the man seconds from blasting the lizard-man chief in the back to be Cynthia's love interest, but it'd just occurred to him that the monsters always got shafted in these types of deals. What if the lizard chief was a brilliant painter? What if he were only fighting the colonists because the lizard clan felt encroached upon, felt as if they had to fight for their survival? What if he were some great priest, almost a religious figure himself to his people for his touching words and actions? This gives Kirk pause.

"Okay," he says aloud, leaning forward again, grabbing an envelope from the cacophony on the other side of his desk. He checks that it's empty and flips it over, pushing things around until he's found a pen. As he writes, he mutters the words he's writing down, as if not verifying them aloud means his hands will suddenly write nonsensically of their own accord. 

"One. Name for the lizard people race. Two. Name for the chief. Chief?" He pauses, frowning. "Chief? Chieftain? Maybe leader. Uhhhh.. Okay, three, think of a new title for the chief. I'm not really liking 'chieftain'." This comment is to the list instead of added to it, and he almost throws his pen back onto the desk, but stops, remembering: "Oh! Right. Four. Characterization."

Satisfied, he tosses the pen back, leaning back in his chair until it squeaks with protest, eyes fixed on the box again. He'd decided earlier that he was going to eat them, all three of them sans any terrible taste, but now that he's reconsidering it he wonders if it's worth a shot. He glanced at the clock: it was just now coming up onto noon, but he hadn't yet eaten breakfast, and cupcakes for breakfast was probably a bad idea.

Fuck it, he's an adult. A published author, no less. He fucking _deserved_ cupcakes for breakfast, as far as he was concerned.

Then once more onto the topic of actual edibility: unless they were terrible- which he was certain they weren't, because the smell they'd given off when he'd opened the box earlier was almost _sinful_ \--he would at least enjoy the base pleasure of eating a cupcake. He was dealing with a coin toss he wasn't sure he liked, assuming these cupcakes were from a fan. What kind of fan would send him cupcakes? Maybe it was a disgruntled fan who'd lovingly crafted him some death cupcakes, with death frosting and a creamy death filling. On one hand, delicious cupcakes. On the other, horrible poison. Why would anyone poison _him_? he reasoned. His books were popular but he wasn't famous. It's not like he was the next Stephen King or anything.

And who would poison Stephen King, anyways? 

Shaking his head, Kirk grabs the box in a fit of passion that waned slightly as he felt the sides began to bend in at his touch. He carefully placed the box on his lap, opening it and staring down at the three perfect cupcakes. Cherry, chocolate or sprinkles? He bit his lip. They smelled _amazing_ , like fresh cream cheese frosting and the thick smell that only handmade cakes could produce. They could almost be called works of art. It was almost a shame that he had to disturb them, destroy the perfect swirls, crush the lovely cake itself...

"It's just a fucking cupcake," he mutters to himself, and grabs the chocolate one, carefully unwrapping the paper from the sides. "It's just a cupcake, it's not poisoned and I'm going to be fine." Kirk rolls his chair closer to his desk, eyes on the screen, and takes a bite as an afterthought as his mind starts to work on the lizard man problem.

Kirk was an avid reader, especially of his fanbase's works and his rivals'; if he was sent a fanfiction, he'd read it as long as the characterization stood (and his fanbase, if he did say so himself, weren't at all bad writers most of the time), and every time one of his rivals hit the New York Bestseller's list he'd snag the book from the library nearby and see what he could improve on and what he thought didn't deserve the praise. Often he'd come across descriptions of food that were honestly just unbelievable. It was his firm belief that someone's eyes wouldn't just lose focus because of food. He'd never eaten something he'd honestly thought could be described as "orgasmic", and he always frowned at the comparison, being as he was also an avid fan of orgasms.

But this cupcake.

This fucking cupcake.

For a moment, his eyes honestly did lose focus. The chocolate cake was so moist it just about melted on his tongue. The buttercream frosting was obviously handmade, with a delicate aftertaste of vanilla, and the chocolate sauce was just bitter enough to offset the sweetness of the frosting and the cake. Kirk almost choked on the decadence of it, the richness of the cake. It was easily the best thing he'd eaten for at least a year. He couldn't even remember a meal he'd had that measured up to this cake.

He finishes it slowly, almost reverently, and licks off the taste of chocolate still hanging to his fingers. The other two cupcakes are finished off before one in the afternoon even has the decency to roll around.

\--

"Hey, Spock," he slurs into the phone the next morning, voice thick with sleep. He'd fallen asleep on the couch around three in the morning, having hammered out a fair amount of pages in a sudden and particularly passionate stretch, and had been rudely awoken by the phone vibrating across the floor, blasting Foreigner's _Cold As Ice_ at eight in the fucking morning. It'd taken a frantic tumbling and flailing but he'd grabbed the phone just before it went to voicemail. "'M here, what's up?"

He laid there on the floor, almost delirious, listening to his editor drone on about how important it was that he finished his newest manuscript, and did he have it finished yet? "No," he murmurs, but he knew Spock wasn't actually asking; it was likely his logic-obsessed robot of an editor had already calculated the logical expectations and acted accordingly. Kirk half-listens to the messages Spock obviously thought he should hear, rolling up and onto his feet once his eyes had blinked away the rest of his sleep. 

Although he could probably write a full book series on all the little things about Spock that annoyed him, Kirk knew for a fact that he was one of the luckiest boys in the business. Originally, Spock had only been his editor, interested in a manuscript most of the other publishing houses had turned down; if it hadn't been for Spock, he never would have bee published to begin with. The man was almost a machine, editing with a cold precision that was enviable, and he could recall the perfect timeline of each of Kirk's books. After the first two books they'd started working together exclusively: Spock doubled as an agent, taking his calls, events and letters while editing, polishing and perfect his books and sending them off to the publisher he'd urged Kirk to sign a contract with. 

It was surprising that logic and reason, the two things Spock swore by, gave way to editing books, especially the passionate and passion-filled sci-fi slash romance slash action books Kirk tossed out every few months, but without Spock's keen eye his books wouldn't quite be the flagship of the publishing house he wrote for. For such a robotic man, Spock had a way with words most people didn't notice, writing him off like Kirk once had years ago.

Kirk was certain that, without Spock, he wouldn't be even halfway to where he was now, but that didn't mean the man's personality grated any less on his own. Good _God_ the man could get verbose, and at eight in the morning Kirk didn't really _care._ He stumbles to the door, opening it and gathering his mail again; he's legitimately surprised to see another pale yellow box sitting neatly on top of the mail from yesterday. 

"Hey Spock?" he asks, interrupting his editor, gathering everything up in his arms and shutting the door behind him with his foot. Spock doesn't skip a beat, finishing his sentence before replying with a curt _yes?_ "Out of curiosity- you haven't been sending me cupcakes, have you? Like, as a little incentive gift or something? I've gotten a little box today and yesterday- that you?"

That, however, does give his editor pause.

"I have not," Spock replies carefully. "I was unaware you were receiving cupcakes."

"Yeah, they just showed up on my doorstep before I got my mail," Kirk murmurs, gently shifting everything onto the table. He adjusts the phone on his shoulder, pinning it back to his ear and sliding the box back off the table. "There's no note or anything, so I thought it might be you."

"No, I have not," Spock reiterates. Sternly, he adds, "you have not eaten them, have you?"

"..'course not," Kirk replies innocently after a not-so-innocent pause.

"You should have alerted me to this yesterday," Spock begins, and Kirk rolls his eyes, taking the box to his desk and sliding back into his chair. As before, there are three perfect cupcakes in the box, looking amazing as always; the card today, however, has the handwriting of a person with terrible handwriting who made an effort to make it legible:

_Realized too late I didn't say what the flavors were. Today's are pineapple upside down cake, red velvet and lemon filled._

He smiles at the scrawl, which starts large and gets smaller as the writer realized there wasn't enough room on the card. The words "lemon filled" are so small that they're almost impossible to read, with the scrawl changing to a forced print halfway through to at least try and make it look like real words. Damn, that's cute.

"Yeah, yeah, Spock, poison, right. Listen, I have to call you back. I'm really making headway on this book and tomorrow's the deadline, remember?" He snaps his phone shut again, hanging up in the middle of what he guessed was a fascinating tirade on why he shouldn't trust doorstep cupcakes, and tosses it onto the couch. He leans over the box, taking in the delightful smells and sights; the pineapple one has a cherry on top and yellow syrup dripped over the once-again perfect swirled frosting, the lemon-filled has a sugared lemon slice balanced delicately in the center of the frosting, the red velvet's darker frosting has the tell-tale sign of being made of cream cheese, the cake itself red as blood beneath. 

"Cupcakes are good for breakfast, right?" he finds himself asking again, oddly nervous at the idea of tasting three new flavors. Sure, the other three were- and he feels his bones shudder at even the idea of saying it, fitting as it is -orgasmic, but who's to say _lemon-filled_ is any good? Kirk scrunches his face up at it. He can't recall ever liking lemon anything, especially not some kind of lemon cream filling. Gingerly he places the box on the top of the paper stack, shutting it and standing to fetch cereal.

The cupcakes still don't make it to 1 PM. He manages to wait an hour before digging in, and using them as an indulgence at the end of two successfully completed chapters. Thanks to the cupcakes, he manages to have more writing done in three and a half hours than he had in a week.

\--

It occurs to him through the third cupcake on the third day that they might be appearing from the bakery he lives above. Normally, the city would reserve the apartments above the businesses on Main Street for the business owners, but he'd managed to snag one with the help of his lawyer when she'd helped him emancipate himself from his violent step-father and constantly traveling, practically non-existant mother. Besides, he was more reliable than the businesses that he'd shared the buildings with: in six years of owning the same apartment, he'd seen six different businesses come and go. The most recent was a bakery, if he recalled correctly, but he usually didn't spend much time out of his apartment, let alone around town.

A quick Google search probably would have told him what the name of the bakery was, who the owner was, who worked there, whatever else he'd need, but the idea of having a secret admirer was intoxicating, and besides: why ruin free cupcakes with assumptions and bad guesses? Especially when the cupcakes had helped him slam out a full manuscript for Spock, who could forgive the cupcakes on the merit that they'd gotten him results.

The fourth day he realizes every single day has been a new flavor, and they're getting more and more elaborate: the coffee cupcake, for example, was shaped like an actual coffee cup, with a chocolate covered espresso bean on top, while one was a rosemary-apricot with a tiny dollop of jam on top. It's also the day he realizes that the cupcakes are coming very early in the morning; he'd woken at ten and found the box already waiting, remembering back to finding them at eight in the morning four days before. 

The fifth day, the cupcakes are late. 

It's stupid, he tells himself, to get upset about a lack of free cupcakes, but there you have it. He leaves the mail where it is on the floor, waiting for whoever's making the little pastry deliveries, as if to say "don't worry, I'm running late too". For about an hour he has to repeatedly tell himself not to go out there, not to find the person who's dropping these off, not to ask them if they're okay.

"It's only been five days!" he yells at himself, curling up on the couch and napping out of anger. He only manages about three hours of naptime before being woken by the sound of the door being knocked on. Never would he ever admit how quickly he ran to the door, only to find it was the postman, apparently knocking to remind him that he'd left his mail out. With some grumbling and hesitation, Kirk collected his short mountain of mail.

The cupcakes arrive around six in the evening. Kirk's sitting at his desk, idly playing little computer games to avoid dealing with the stack of paper ever looming over his mood. He barely notices the little scuffle but he does notice, flying across his little apartment and wrenching the door open. The box sits in front of his door, a hastily scratched "sorry" note taped to the top, and he can hear someone half-jumping down the staircase in retreat, out of sight before Kirk even makes it to the top of the stairs. 

Inside are two of the normal looking cupcakes, the third sporting a tiny little white and red striped straw. The card quietly boasts, _Tried something new. Root beer_ under the other two flavor descriptions. This makes him smile, leaning back in his chair with a palpable feeling of relief.

He eats his cupcakes in silence, feeling simultaneously stupid for being so attached to pastries and so relieved they'd come. That's when he decides to catch the bastard responsible. His teeth sink into an odd little cucumber mint cupcake as he muses on the nature of whoever's leaving him these decadent gifts, and he realizes whoever it is has dedicated themselves to ensuring his happiness even though they've never met. "Not for long, cupcake," he murmurs to himself in a stereotypical Mafia don voice, grinning at himself. For the rest of the night he sits in a cupcake-induced coma on the couch, laughing at his mobster mumblings.

Day six doesn't go so well. 

First, he sleeps in, and when he wakes up the cupcakes are already at his door. He doesn't have the time to check the flavors or mourn his lost chance, because he'd also slept in past his appointment with Spock. The cupcakes sit sadly on the table, waiting for him as he dances around his apartment pulling on clothes and gathering papers; when he jets out the door, he runs down the stairs and immediately runs back up to carefully place them in his fridge.

The meeting doesn't go very well, either. Spock absolutely tears his manuscript apart- which, don't get him wrong, he was expecting and welcomed -but that coupled with missing a lunch date with his lawyer and being served with a lawsuit for plagiarism made his night very rough. He returns to his apartment entirely empty of emotion, shutting down from the stress of leaving, the stress of constant negative emotions, the stress of possibly losing his beloved job. 

For an hour he takes a cold shower, slowly trying to filter through the emotions and thoughts he'd bottled up. He considers it a lost cause when he can't feel the skin on his back anymore and steps out, half-heartedly drying himself and dressing. The ragged yellow bathrobe he spends most of his days in is a comfort to slip back into, comforting him slightly, and the weight of it convinces him that the world's not so terrible, so he makes his way to the kitchen to half-heartedly make dinner as well.

A quick glance in the fridge and there's the pale yellow box, inviting and reassuring, and Kirk realizes he'd forgotten all about them. He spends the next hour sitting at his kitchen table, slowly consuming cupcakes and trying not to cry.

He doesn't mean to stay up all night, but he does, contemplating life and the lawsuit he now has hanging over his head. Most of the night is spent picking through the ruined manuscript and building from scratch, rewriting entire sections and trying to make it all make sense again. A solid hour is dedicated to decimating the paper stack on his desk and the paperwork he'd brought back from Spock's place, and by the time he's finished with it all, he realizes it's five in the morning.

Five in the morning.

It comes to him suddenly that this is about when the cupcakes should arrive. In at least the next three hours.

He reminds himself for the next hour that he should _not_ be this excited about cupcakes, scritching stars and planets into a notepad as he sits on the floor beside his door. The next twenty minutes after that is fear and excitement playing ping pong with his heart. One moment, he's thrilled to meet whoever's been doting on him, the next he's terrified. Shouldn't ruin the magic, right? What if they hate each other? What if they're doing it for someone else, some anonymous person, and they can't give him any answers?

A soft shuffling outside his door interrupts his thought process and he freezes where he's sitting, swallowing hard. Should he open the door? Should he just wait for them to go? As silently as he's able, Kirk stands, hand hovering over the doorknob, the shuffling getting closer and closer. It stops, and his heart skips a beat. With a quick thrill, he decides in a nanosecond and rips the door open.

Which, naturally, entirely startles the kneeling man trying to carefully place the box down. His hazel eyes open wide and his face flushes immediately. Kirk can't help but kneel down with him, grin at him, flashing brilliant teeth excitedly. 

"Hi," he says, feeling breathless.

"Uh," the man replies, obviously trying to teleport himself by sheer will out of there.

"Are you the guy who keeps leaving me these cupcakes?" Kirk points at the box, and he can't for the life of him wipe the stupid grin off his face.

"Uh," the man repeats, floundering. "..Yeah, yeah I am." He stands slowly, straightening his back, shifting uncomfortably. Glancing down at the box, he loosens his grip a bit, his fingers having bent the cardboard slightly from sheer shock.

"Great, good. That's awesome," Kirk says, rolling back where he's kneeling to simultaneously stand and open the door wide. "Would you, uh. I know this is weird, but would you like to come in?"

**Author's Note:**

> part two will be posted soon. I just wanted to get the first half up for perusal.
> 
>  
> 
> ~~I am so sorry.~~


End file.
